Hello again. I've been wanting to become a freight broker for a while now. Long story short, it's looking more and more like something I should NOT do for various reasons. My inexperience and market saturation being 2 big reasons.
So, I've been thinking of lateral business ideas that I may be better suited for and wondered about working directly for truckers as a virtual assistant. Someone posted on this forum a long time ago asking questions about VA's and it seemed like 1/2 would never use such a service and the other half seemed kind of into it or actively had remote assistance. I think I have confirmed 2 VA's that have already done this--one is still in business and one is not. (Admittedly not a good sign if I'm trying to prove that there's a market for it. That's why I thought I would just ask here outright.)
Some ideas I have include: I would sell blocks of time (5 hours, 25 hours, etc) to work directly for drivers doing tasks they might struggle with while out on the road--faxing, phone calls, collections, price comps, scheduling, etc. Unused hours would rollover up to 3 months. I noticed some drivers prefer to find their own loads, but I could also scan free/paid load boards as part of my service for those that might want an extra set of eyes. Since my product is my time, I wouldn't be taking commissions, just connecting driver to broker/shipper. Could possibly drum up leads and do some marketing, especially for regional couriers.
I feel like the VA route is the better option for me and one that I would really enjoy doing, but is there are market for it? What say you?
Freight Broker vs Virtual Assistant
Discussion in 'Freight Broker Forum' started by marwatson, Feb 3, 2020.